Workers load steels tubes onto a truck, which will be used to protect a deep well next to the area where two-year-old Julen fell into at a private estate in Totalan, southern Spain, on Jan 17, 2019.

PHOTO: Reuters

TOTALAN, Spain - The search for a toddler who fell down a well in Spain, in a tragedy that has gripped the country, ran into problems on Thursday (Jan 17) as rescuers raced against time to find the boy alive.

Julen Rosello, who is two, fell down a very narrow shaft more than 100m deep on Sunday while playing as his parents had lunch nearby, in the town of Totalan near Malaga, family members said.

"We're putting all our efforts in going as fast as possible but I want you to know there are huge difficulties," Mr Angel Garcia Vidal, the engineer coordinating the work, told reporters on the fifth day of rescue operations.

He added that under normal circumstances, the type of excavation work being carried out to try to get Julen out would take "months". Rescuers are for now unable to get to where they believe the child is, as a layer of earth, sand and stones believed to have been dragged down by Julen when he fell have blocked the well.

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Engineer Juan Lopez told reporters that the vertical tunnel was progressing "for the moment without too many problems".

But the horizontal one is causing "problems", he added. Excavating that tunnel "within less than two days is really complicated", he said.

Among the nine companies taking part in operations is Stockholm Precision Tools AB, a Swedish company that in 2010 contributed to the spectacular rescue of 33 Chilean miners trapped 69 days underground.

This race against time recalls several other high-profile cases in the 1980s.

Alfredo Rampi, an Italian boy, was found dead in a well near Rome in 1981, while Jessica McClure, an 18-month-old girl, was rescued alive from a well in Texas in October 1987 after more than two days inside.